I never liked those shoes. They are like a bad knock off of toms. Somehow they even make shittier crocs for jails as well... I remember walking into a Walmart and a guy being like "yo when did you serve" as I was buying a pair of entnies (didn't know they sold them there, but they were like $25) to finish my 19 mile walk home. Wasn't sure how he knew at first, then realized he remembered those shitty shoes as well.

(Things not to do in life, get pulled out of bed in the middle of the night by police wearing no shoes and forced to walk across a stone driveway.)

Innocent until proven guilty time and time again proves to be not how our system works. Alleged charges were dismissed and expunged. The impact on my life, not able to be taken back.

[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 41 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Yeah, the criminal justice system in the U.S. causes immeasurable harm. From a probation system designed to keep you in the system, to kids-for-cash-like schemes that I'm convinced are more common than has been prosecuted, to coercive delay tactics. All of which I have personal experience with. I've currently been out on bail for 2 years, and someone else in my county has been in jail without trial for 5 years because he can't afford bail. Not to mention the horrible conditions in many jails and prisons, slave labor, nearly complete lack of rehabilitation, and the system milking the incarcerated's families for money. I can't think of any other word to describe it than evil.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

I worked government contracts in IT for the last 10 years mostly. After the allegation I failed 3 background checks coming back saying conviction when the case was retired and moved to be dismissed. My entire career was shot save for a 9 month contract I got where they overroad the background check with a lawyers response showing it was a false response on the conviction and due to costs I have literally nothing left. After lawyers and shit... 0 savings, 0 401k, contract over now, took a job for a distributor for a well known brand to pay bills... No background check. Even Kroger's background check failed me when the case has already been dismissed. It destroyed my life, and I did nothing.

[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's some Kafka-tier bullshit, wtf.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I only know him from literature and trivia questions poised in the U.S.

Care to explain what that means to me? If you don't want to say so here you can dm me. Truth is often hard to find these days. (AI responses, monetary/ad responses / keyword manipulation)

[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Kafka wrote stories about confusing, impersonal bureaucracies. So people will describe something as Kafkaesque to convey that sense of being lost in a system.

[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Specifically in The Trial dude was judged and persecuted by the state without anyone even explaining to him what he did.

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Because he didn't cry at his mother's funeral, right?

[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

what

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Isn't that the plot of that book? Maybe I'm thinking of another one.

[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You do, probably.

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It was The Stranger by Camus, whoops.

[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Ha, never read it. I count it as a recomendation.

[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah, the company I was working at got bought out and then they layed the entire tech team and pretty much everyone else. Co-founded a business with coworkers, but it's not bringing in any revenue and not sure it ever will bring in very much, so have been applying to jobs. Only got a few interviews, then ghosted afterwards. I'm guessing a part of it is I have a criminal charge pending, and the first thing you see on Google when you search my name and town is one of those mugshot websites. Maybe I should go into construction, lol.

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Yeah, you should. Go into the trades in general. I got into hospital installation work nine years ago and it changed my life. I went from making 36k a year to 45k immediately because I went from salary food service management working 60 to 70 hours to hourly working 40 to 50 plus paid travel. Contractor work so no time and a half overtime. If I had been working for an hourly wage at my salary job, then I tripled it for less work, no managing people, and so so much less stress.

I learned so many skills I can't put a dollar value on. One of the ones I can was low voltage cabling. I'm not trying to boast when I say I'm one of the best at this in a hospital setting in the United States. It's a small field. I don't make nearly as much as a master electrician would with my experience but I didn't have to do an official apprenticeship and don't have any kind of license other than OSHA and shit like scissor lift.

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

This might sound stupid but maybe contact local media? TV especially. They might like to do a segment on you. You can obviously speak professionally and hopefully still dress the part and plead your case. This is a long shot, but it could actually get it fixed.

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How much is the guy's bail? If you throw money at it, I will too. It's your duty to your fellow man for equity. It's probably more than we can afford but I'm just thinking. Maybe we can seed a fund.

[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Looked it up, and looks like a local criminal justice reform non-profit bailed him out earlier this year. Looks like he's still awaiting trial though, is on an ankle monitor, and they keep resetting dismissal hearing dates.

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I went to sentencing for a misdemeanor and all I took in my pockets were like 10 quarters for the phone because I knew I was only in a couple days or week max but they let you out when they feel like it. My girlfriend was going to come get me when I got out. This wasn't totally before cell phones but I didn't have one at the time.

They took my quarters when I got to jail.

Break for Pro-Tip: if you know you're going to jail, even just for the night or until you make bail and not gen pop, don't take any money if you can avoid it. They call it the "jail fee" and steal all your paper money (or quarters in my case). I once hid my cash in my sock when I knew I was going to drunk tank and the guy was going through my wallet. He asked me where was my money. I told him I threw it out the window of the police car. Back to the story.

I couldn't believe they took my fucking phone quarters. They let me out in the middle of the night in December. There were two COs getting off work and I tried to beg a couple quarters to use the phone. They just laughed at me. I didn't bring a jacket or anything, it was warmish when I went to court. By now it's about 40 degrees. Lucky I guess, back then it got a lot colder a lot more often.

So I start walking. It's 10 miles. Try to hitchhike for a while then give up. It starts raining. This is the point where I considered laying down in the ditch to die. I realized it would take too long to die and kept on. Nobody walking on the road. This is a state road that runs beside the highway and doesn't have much on it. I went into a gas station to try to use their phone and they told me to fuck off. I went into a McDonald's and they let me get a free water. I ended up walking to my girlfriend's apartment which was about 16 blocks closer than my place. I walked in, climbed into bed and she woke up saying what the fuck why didn't you call me?

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Man, what assholes.

I was at a "know your rights" training thing for protesters and activists, and one of the things that they covered is that a super important and low risk thing way to support a large protest is to have people sort of "on guard" nearby the police station, ready to receive and support someone who was arrested, because the police like to release people at stupid times of night (especially if they're salty that they don't have enough evidence to charge you for a crime). In most cases though, (such as yours), there's no-one to provide this support, and then you're fucked.

I hadn't realised how prevalent this spitefulness was until this part of the training , where multiple people shared experiences of this sort. I was already on team ACAB as it was.

I'm glad you made it home safe.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

I really don't understand why cops think we should like them. Like they treat the accused like shit, even when not guilty, they're just awful to the victims, and half the time you see them they're on a power trip.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I hate that not only do I believe you I'm not even surprised.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I'm currently reading Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream which is a short story by Stephen King about an innocent person accused of a crime. He had a similar line about "whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?"

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

That's the fun part about that picture above, that is a picture of how they treat an innocent man. He hasn't been convicted of anything. They never would have had all new oranges like that for him if it wasn't for the number of cameras they knew would show up.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Exactly, the cops will pull out all the stops to convince you that the accused are criminals and the media happily plays along. Luigi Mangionie has no conviction and as an American is therefore innocent for the time being. The cops don't want you thinking of this as them parading an innocent man like that. They routinely violate and abuse the accused, and in cases like this they're trying to ensure that the public, potential jurors, go in with the assumption that he's the individual who killed Brian Thompson. They treat not guilty verdicts as "criminals going free" rather than "innocence being decided" and they treat jurisprudence as a hindrance to justice rather than a foundation of it.

The cops believe all they see to be guilty by virtue of falling under their gaze. And they get angry you don't celebrate them for it.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I want to upvote this more than once. Younger people I believe say based, but at 35 I still lack the vocabulary to properly say I agree with this opinion profoundly without fear of coming across to eager or strange.

(Starting to think I have anxiety issues after reflecting upon that)

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's cool lol, this was one of my half lunch break rambles. And I totally get the anxiety lol

But yeah the fact is that if cops want to be liked and safe they need to make it easy and beneficial to comply and to follow the rules. As it stands if they decide you're a bad person who's committed a bad crime they'll ruin your fucking life if not end it. So if they can't catch the people who commit violent crimes against people like me or even bother to pretend to try, but they can decide to kill someone for running away from them despite none of the accused crimes being potentially capital offenses, then what are they for. If they can ruin your life on a hunch then the only thing stopping people from being violent towards them is that most people aren't violent unless pressed.

I can see ways forward for American policing, but they all require the police to display a humility, vulnerability, accountability, and restraint that I've never seen from them. It will require them to learn the law, follow it, and accept punishment when they break it. It will require them to embrace a duty to protect all people in their jurisdiction, including both the accused and convicted. It will require them to see their job as impartial collection of evidence for the only entity that has the right to determine guilt: a jury consisting of the peers of the accused. It will require them to argue for evidence based legislation and justice that seeks to minimize harm to both victims and the convicted. And it's going to require them to be ok with the dangers inherent to their profession where not accepting those dangers puts the rest of us in danger, because that's what everyone else in a dangerous job does. And it'll also require them to have mandatory therapy where the therapists can put them on paperwork duty because that's obviously something they need, we shouldn't have traumatized gunmen with a license to kill for a police force, but currently we're preloading them with trauma responses as training and probably barring them from therapy because that's how we handle mental health in this country.

Sigh, i just want this world to be better and I understand that it's not easy. But that doesn't mean it's impossible or not worth trying.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm sure our opinions differ on many things, but this reminds me of when I get on rants talking about how things could be better as well. I hope you know you are loved by those you will never meet, and please keep trying to see that light and hope. It doesn't look like the class war is going away any time soon, so punches will keep coming.. just please keep standing back up. Maybe one of us will win a billion+ dollar lottery somehow and build a sanctuary city in the middle of nowhere where we can start it all fresh, build it ethically, set up our own healthcare system for the growing city, therapy and help for those coming in and our own policing force to ensure our safety. Ban the construction by large corporations, gas powered vehicles from entering the city and set up public transportation and ensure most of the city is set up walkable without need for cars so everyone can safely and quickly reach their destinations.

Eventually have just a safe haven where we recycle the initial funds only spending the investments on its expansion. As businesses make money and people are healthier and happier, other cities would likely try to copy some of those things to dispel people leaving there and try to make their own cities nicer.

Hope you have a wonderful life stranger : )

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wait etnies are prison shoes? They are by far my favourite brand of shoes lol

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I was buying $25 etnies from Walmart on a walk home from jail wearing the knock off Toms jail shoes.

Hard to tell in the picture but if you zoom in you can see them, the way his toe is lifted makes the bottom look larger(white area) than they really are. (Some would call them bath shoes for jails)